Friday, July 09, 2010

Shut Up and Thank Us

In a Thursday interview, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel argued that rather than recoiling against Obama, business leaders should be grateful for his support on at least a half-dozen counts: his advocacy of greater international trade and education reform open markets despite union skepticism; his rejection of calls from some quarters to nationalize banks during the financial meltdown; the rescue of the automobile industry; the fact that the overhaul of health care preserved the private delivery system; the fact that billions in the stimulus package benefited business with lucrative new contracts, and that financial regulation reform will take away the uncertainty that existed with a broken, pre-crash regulatory apparatus.

Nice to see Rahm emerging from the rabbit hole now that people have forgotten the Joe Sestak bribery charges. Anyway, allow a translation...

"Business is uneasy? They should be thanking us for our restraint! We could have gone a whole lot more fascist in saving them from the Bush depression! C'mon. We stood up to our union puppetmasters on education and trade reform, remember? And you should get down on your knees and bow to the One for only bribing the banks instead of nationalizing them, when he had a golden opportunity. And hey, don't forget to thank him for saving the GM-Chrysler unions and their pension system, which was important for America. By the way, they've got a real nice golf course up there in Wisconsin, the prez bagged an eagle on number 10 on the last trip. You should have seen it!

And please, health care? Please. He so could have gone single payer! He wants it, you know, but the man has patience. So he kept the pitchforks away from big insurance and this is how they repay him. You know, the president does admire Dr. Berwick, who admires the British single payer system, who will soon run our own Medicare apparatus. You might want to connect some dots, suckas!

And have all you suits forgotten the don't mess with Joe stimulus and bribery program, the one we've carefully managed to trickle out funds to make dead sure businesses don't forget who brought them all those lucrative contracts in a down time? There's a web site where we've detailed all those contracts so nobody forgets, and somewhere out there is a web site with a donate link, wink wink. You know they say gratitude is a virtue.

And lastly, how can any business mogul hate financial reform when it lays out the ground rules of whose ass we'll be kicking if things don't go as planned? Sounds like certainty to me."

Just one interpretation, others are possible. Anyway, it's amazing that people can't see the administration as the most pro-growth ever coming out of the Bush Depression. According to spokesman Bill Burton:

“And so maybe those things aren’t always going to be popular with business, but if you look at where we were and where we are now, the president has made progress on the economy. He has brought us to a place where the economy is growing, where jobs are being created, as opposed to losing 700,000 a month like we were when we came into office. But there are going to be times when we disagree, and that’s fine.”

That sounds nice, but is it real? Perhaps Mr. Burton was confusing US data with Canadian data (hmm, what was Mr. Harper recently suggesting at the G20 summit about spending? Oh yeah). But whom do you trust more, a Nobel Laureate and his ideologues or actual data? C'mon, quit worrying, fat cats. We all know how we got here:

“These folks drove the economy into a ditch, and they want the keys back. And you’ve got to say the same thing to them that you say to your teenager: You can’t take the keys back, because you don’t know how to drive yet.”

Which is a terrible thing to say about the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader after all their hard work since 2007.